Chrom (Super Smash Bros. Ultimate)

The protagonist of Fire Emblem Awakening joins the battle as Roy's echo fighter. His final smash is Awakening Aether. Like Aether in the original game, this move has Chrom charge toward his opponent, slashing with his sword.

Availability

Character Statistics

Chrom is a newcomer fighter in Super Smash Bros. Ultimatefrom the Fire Emblem universe. He was confirmed during the August 8th Smash Direct. Chrom is the Echo Fighter of Roy (although some of his moves are borrowed from Ike), and is classified as fighter number is 25e.

Attributes

Strengths

Consistent damage output, making securing KOs easier without the need for spacing.

High damage output, allowing him to deal high damage in a short amount of time.

Fast startup and end lag on moves, giving him the ability to combo moves quickly.

Powerful aerial game, making him excellent at pressuring and juggling.

Flare Blade is an effective KO option, having the ability to be charged and reversed for mix-up potential.

Double-Edge Dance is a quick damage racker, giving Chrom the ability to shift through various inputs to launch opponents forwards, upwards, or rack up damage.

Soaring Slash can serve as a damage racker, can meteor smash opponents off the ledge, or be used as a sacrificial KO option.

Counter allows Chrom to retaliate.

Weaknesses

Requires close combat to deal damage reliably.

Very poor recovery, making him easily edgeguarded.

Lacks ranged options and the means to counter them, making him susceptible to camping.

Lacks sourspots, which eliminates potential setups.

Cannot secure KOs as early as Roy.

Can be pressured easily.

Soaring Slash KO's Chrom first, making it a risky option when used on Chrom's final stock.

Summary

Fundamentally, Chrom shares the same advantages of his original fighter Roy: he possesses outstanding mobility, making him a very effective unit for approaching and pressuring on the ground and in the air. Chrom also possesses disjointed reach, giving him options for spacing and disrupting approaches. All these traits combined with outstanding startup and ending data, which makes his moves difficult to anticipate or punish, makes Chrom a very effective rushdown character.

However, unlike Roy and in a similar vein to his daughter Lucina, Chrom lacks sweetspots and sourspots along his Falchion. This trait makes his damage output and knockback more consistent, and allows him to secure KOs more reliably at any range unlike Roy, who suffers from his reliance on close-combat and the polarizing power of his strong sweetspots and ineffective sourspots. Chrom also retains Roy's high damage output, while less extreme, still enables him to deal a high amount of damage in a short amount of time, which makes Chrom one of the strongest sword fighters around, and somewhat exists as a balance between Ike and Lucina in terms of mobility and raw power.

Chrom's Special Moves offer him various options for keeping opponents from approaching while dealing considerable damage. Flare Blade is a chargeable move that deals high damage, ends fast, and can be reversed to catch landings or punish whiffed moves. Double Edge Dance is a quick option for dealing damage and setting up combos, and can have its hits altered for mix-ups. Soaring Slash is a useful escape option and quickly disrupting a grounded opponent's defense, and can be a Sacrificial KO option off-stage due to its Meteor Smash hitbox. Finally, Counter provides Chrom a means of instant retaliation against attacks, with its power increasing as it intercepts more attacks.

Chrom's greatest weakness lies in his exceptionally poor recovery; possessing a purely vertical option in Soaring Slash, if Chrom gets knocked off stage he is almost guaranteed to be KO'd, as his fast falling speed and effective edgeguarding can easily place him in a position where he cannot recover. Chrom's poor recovery option also limits his ability to edgeguard opponents unless he fully commits to eliminate his own stock along with theirs. Due to Chrom possessing a consistent blade, he also lacks the ability to set up KO or combo setups with sourspots or secure KOs as early as Roy. In addition, Chrom suffers from problems associated with most sword characters, being susceptible to projectile camping and juggling due to lacking any means of countering projectiles and possessing a rather poor grab game. Chrom's sword range is also shorter than most sword fighters like Roy, which necessitates him to fight closer and putting him at risk.

To conclude, Chrom must be capable of shifting between aggression and baiting and punishing, using his mobility, range, and damage output to accomplish each gameplan. Chrom must also take care to avoid getting pressured off-stage, and must take full advantage off his mobility and spacing options to ward off aggression.

In competitive play

To be added

Classic Mode: Fight as One

Chrom's Classic Mode consists of him fighting a pair of fighters from a certain universe with either Robin or Lucina as an ally, as a reference to Awakening's Pair Up mechanic. However, the very first battle is a reference to Chrom's very first encounter with Lucina in Awakening. His song in the credits is Id (Purpose).

In World of Light

Chrom does not make a direct appearance in the opening cutscene, but as with the majority of the fighters except Kirby he is vaporized when Galeem unleashes his beams of light.

Later on when Galeem is first defeated and Dharkon emerges, Chrom is one of the fighters to fall under its control. He can be found in the Triforce of Courage section within the Sacred Land sub-area of the Dark Realm, though he can only be reached by opening a chest and reexamining it, allowing the player to be transported to Chrom's location.

Videos

Trivia

Upon release, Chrom retained the original Fire Emblem victory theme based off of Brawl, which is shared by Marth, Roy, and Ike. However, in version 3.0.0, he received the new Awakening-based victory theme that was given to Lucina and Robin, making Chrom the only character to change victory themes within a title.

Chrom's up taunt and victory pose mimics his pose from Awakening.

Chrom's up taunt mimics Lucina's up taunt, which was demonstrated twice in his reveal and his character trailer.

Chrom is one of the few characters to speak while being KO'd, occasionally shouting "Sorry!", which alludes to Chrom's clumsiness.

Chrom's Classic Mode is the only one in which Master Hand and Crazy Hand are fought simultaneously regardless of difficulty, as normally 7.0 intensity or higher is required for the latter hand to appear.